Miss
GRACE HOPE FRENCH, Second Cabin Passenger
[No Picture Provided]
Grace French, 24, was a dressmaker and milliner from Scotland.
She was the daughter of Archibald French (1856 - 1938) and Annie
Colquhoun (27 June 1855 - 19 October 1930). Archibald French was
a spirit dealer's labourer (1879) and later a yarn bundler (1890).
He was employed at the Turkey Red Works and was a trainer of the
Renton football (soccer) team. He married Annie Colquhoun on 6
March 1878. Grace was born 10 June 1890 in Renton,
Scotland. Among family and friends, she was known as "Gracie."
She had one brother, Archie, and four adult sisters:
Margaret, Mary McLeod, Flora Campbell, and Annie Colouhoun.
Another sister, Janet Cameron, had died at age one.
In 1908, Grace's brother Archie, then 21, moved to New York City.
Grace followed her brother to America in 1911 on the California.
From 1911 tp 1915 Grace often visited her brother, her Uncle
Walter in Chester, Pennsylvania, and her second cousin, Sarah
McDougall, and Sarah's parents John and Annie McDougall, in Norwich,
Connecticut.
On 1 May 1915, Grace had planned to return to Scotland on the Anchor
Liner Cameronia. The
ship, however, was requisitioned by the British Admiralty and all of
the ship's passengers were reshuffled to the Lusitania.
The transfers were
the last to be taken onboard the ship. Grace in a 1975 interview
claimed
to be the last passenger to board, almost missing the ship and later
wished
that she had missed it.
Among Grace's acquaintances on the Lusitania were Archie Donald and Richard
Preston Prichard. Prichard had teased Grace that she had
a double onboard, and on the day of the disaster they went looking for
the woman. Richard and Grace were together when the torpedo
struck,
but when she looked around right after, she found that her companion
had disappeared.
After the ship sank, Grace kept alive by clinging onto the corpse of a
large man for floatation.
Grace was one of among several survivors who wrote to Richard Preston
Prichard's
mother as to the fate of her son, but Grace nor anyone else was not
able to offer concrete answers.
In 1926, Grace received compensation from Cunard for the loss of her
belongings.
Grace settled in Renton, Scotland where she was known throughout the
district for her millinery and dressmaking shop which she ran with
older sister Annie. Grace also had three other married sisters
who lived in
the Renton area.
Grace's brother Archie died in New York City in 1942. He is not
believed to have married.
Reportedly, Grace and fellow Lusitania survivor, Archie Donald,
continued to correspond until the latter's death in Pasadena,
California,
in 1959. Since Grace's voyage on the ill-fated liner, she never
had
and never would return to the United States.
In 1960 Grace moved to 3 Steele Walk in Balloch, Scotland. She
and Annie continued to run their dressmaking shop until Annie's death
in 1974. In 1975 she moved to the Clydeview Eventide Home in
Helensburgh, Scotland. She died in February 1986, aged 95,
"remembered as a 'marvelous personality' who was regarded with great
affection by everyone who knew her."
Grace's four-letter correspondance with Mrs. Prichard and the rest of
the Prichard Letters are available from the Imperial War Museum by
e-mailing Tony Richards at <docs@iwm.org.uk>.
Contributors:
Hildo Thiel
Margaret F. Winslow (cousin of Grace French)
References:
Hoehling, A. A. and Mary Hoehling. The Last Voyage of the
Lusitania. Madison Books, 1956.
Lennox Herald. 2 July 1938.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy.
Berkley Books, 2002.
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